Angela Carella: Strife and drum: Neighbors block band practice

Updated 8:30 pm, Saturday, October 26, 2013

On Thursday night, residents of Fenway Street, who say they have been calling Board of Education officials for a month without success to discuss noise from Stamford High School band practice, took matters into their own hands.

Residents parked their cars in the Stamford High lot where the marching band has been practicing.

When the band emerged from the school and walked onto the parking lot, cars blocked the practice area. Words were exchanged. You're trespassing, one of the band leaders said. It's public property, a resident said. A band leader used his phone to photograph the license plates of the residents' cars. They photographed him photographing their license plates.

Someone called police. Two squad cars and a supervisor responded. A band leader called the Stamford High principal, who ordered them back into the school.

An incident was averted. But the frustration that drove noise-weary residents to block the practice area now has spread to band leaders and Stamford High drummers, horn and flute players, members of the color guard and the rest preparing for a competition.

Patty Mancini lives across Fenway Street from the Stamford High parking lot. There are no trees to blunt the sound, which reverberates across the parking lot and bounces off the school building into her home. Lately the band is excruciatingly loud, Mancini said.

"You can't talk on the phone. You blast the TV, but you still can't hear it. It's like the band is playing in the house," said Mancini, who has lived on Fenway Street for 38 years. "They play two or three nights a week and on Saturdays. I understand about the band -- my kids went to public school, too. And I know I will be criticized for not being nice because they are schoolkids and they have to practice. But I have to speak up. It's just too loud. The school has to have some courtesy for the neighbors."

Mancini said she called Michael Fernandes, assistant superintendent of secondary education; Al Barbarotta, facilities manager for the schools; and Donna Valentine, Stamford High principal. When she got nowhere, she started calling her city representatives, Mancini said.

McGarry said one Fenway Street homeowner is moving out because he can't take the noise.

"I'm eight houses away, so I'm able to tune it out, but if it were as loud in my living room as it is in Patty Mancini's living room, I would go out of my mind," McGarry said. "Something like this just can't go on and on. This woman is getting frazzled. She's frantic to get a resolution."

Mancini said she wants to talk to school officials about whether the band can practice when most people are at work, or on the football field, where the sound does not echo across pavement.

"There must be some solution," Mancini said. "But nobody calls you back."

So she and others parked their cars in the lot Thursday night when the band came out to play.

Valentine said the band director called her and she told him to go back into the school.

"I didn't think it was appropriate for there to be any kind of interaction among adults with the kids there. I wanted to avoid confrontation," Valentine said.

She has not heard from neighbors about the noise, Valentine said.

"When I get a message, I return the call," she said.

She did hear from school administrators, though, and took steps to mitigate the noise, Valentine said.

"Since the complaints started about a month ago, I made some adjustments," Valentine said. "Practices have been cut back to two nights a week, and they end at 8 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Whenever the football field is empty, the band is supposed to practice there instead of the parking lot."

On Thursday night the football field was empty, but the band went to the parking lot to practice.

"They should have been on the field, so that certainly is an error," Valentine said. "The band has been absolutely directed to practice on the field whenever possible. That will definitely be a steadfast rule, you have my guarantee."

A marching band must learn formations and has to practice outdoors, Valentine said.

"When the band practices on the football field, we get complaints from those neighbors," she said. "No matter where I put the band, we get complaints."

Then she put her finger on the reason Fenway Street residents may be noticing the noise now. The band is almost three times bigger.

"When I got here four years ago, there were 19 kids in the band," Valentine said. "Now there are probably more than 50."

Mallozzi applauded their success.

"They are a good band. I've seen them. We want them to do well," he said. "We just have to address this problem for the neighbors."

Valentine said there are two or three more practices before the season ends; then there is time to work on solutions for next year.

"It sounds like there's been a miscommunication and I'm sorry it got to where it is," Valentine said. "If anyone wants to talk to me, I'm happy to buy them lunch and we'll sit down and talk and be a neighborhood. We're a neighborhood school."